


I, Immortal

by Wolkemesser



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Canon Welding, Multi, Origin Story, Theros, canon supplemental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 15:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22718209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolkemesser/pseuds/Wolkemesser
Summary: An origin story for the enigmatic Klothys, Theran god of destiny. How does one become eternal?I originally wrote this for and submitted to the excellent MtG Lore repository :)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

(Link to story on the [MTG Lore](https://mtglore.com/fanfiction/i-immortal-part-one/) site)

The first hero had been a mistake. Or self-defense, at the very least. Klothys thought that she and the little human wanted the same thing when red-faced hydra came roaring into the valley. The hero had been hot on the monster’s heels.

The hydra was nothing new; beasts were a constant threat to Klothys’s valley. She could smell most monsters from a mile off, and usually intercepted them before they crossed over the mountains. The hydra had snuck into the valley under the cover of a rainstorm. By the time Klothys caught wind of it, it had descended on the village of the little valley folk, and—more importantly—upon their cattle.

  
  


_That_ would not do. Those were Klothys’s to eat.

The villagers huddled up in their homes on the foothills, watching the hydra rampage the fields below. It made sense; the little people were delicate. The shepherds and ranchers who guarded the flocks were delicate. The soldiers who sometimes came to kill Klothys were delicate, even with their armor and blades. A hydra would eat any of them as soon as look at them. It was strange to think something as small as the villagers would be brave enough to fight a hydra, but there the hero was with his sword and little winged shoes that let him leap high into the air.

Klothys knew the work of two would go faster than the work of one, so she lent her hands to the fight, snapping the hydra’s necks while the hero stabbed at its throats. Together they slew the monster in mere minutes, which pleased Klothys.

When the hero turned his sword on her though, as soon as the hydra lay dead, _that_ was less pleasing. Klothys had never denied the little people their right to fight back when she took their cattle, but there was something in the viciousness this jumping hero hacked at her with. Something about his lack of hesitation. His presumption to fight beyond simply defending himself.

Klothys swatted the little hero out of the air almost on instinct, and ground him into the turf with her heel for good measure. The villagers groaned and moaned, but little that Klothys did ever made them happy. She simply shrugged, snatched up a pair of cows, and went on her way.

Slaying a hydra was hungry work, after all. Even for a cyclops.

Klothys’s life was full of heroes after that. Most were nothing special. Loud, clad in bronze… not so different from the soldiers. Maybe they fought a bit fiercer. Moved a bit faster. But in the end an ant was an ant, no matter how great a weapon the gods put in their hands.

Still, they were a bother. She had always kept her head down. Never strayed outside the valley. Never smashed more of the village than she had to when she was hungry. There were worse creatures beyond the hills; titans and dragons, krakens and giants; all much bigger nuisances than Klothys.

And yet the heroes came to fight _her_.

Sometimes they would stumble upon the valley while chasing a monster. Others just showed up without warning, either tracking Klothys down or waiting in the village fields to intercept her when she came to get her supper.

There was always a speech. Shouting and boasting about this god or that. Whichever one of the starry pests had decided that they wanted a little hero.

The heroes’ speeches made Klothys head hurt, so she made them silent. That was just the way of things.

 _Heroes shout and they die. S_ imple _._ If only the villagers could understand that.

When the soldiers had first come, the little people of the valley cheered them on. Klothys had worried she’d have to kill them too after smashing the soldiers, but they’d just slunk away when the “battle” was finished. Just as well. Bad enough to have them coming out with their flails and staffs whenever Klothys needed a meal. Bad enough to have to break their little bones just to fill her belly.

  
  


When the heroes came, bands of admirers and tag-alongs followed. Singers and guides and others who wanted to see how a hero lived. Again, the villagers cheered. Once Klothys showed them how a hero died, the followers would flee the valley, or else find a place among the village folk. With every hero, the shouts grew a little quieter. A little more subdued.

By the time the champion of the sun arrived, the villagers had stopped cheering entirely.

The champion’s group was small. Just a child to carry her shield and spear, and a woman with no weapons at all. The champion did not shout like the others when Klothys lumbered up the foothills, but just stood, and let the unarmed woman talk.

“The champion Agrippa has come this day, willed by the gods and embracing the destiny to free the people of this fair valley from the oppression of the dread cyclops, Klothys…”

Klothys blinked. The little talker had such a lovely voice that the… wrongness of what she said almost didn’t sink in.

“…for what good is it to be free of titans of storm and endless hunger when the moderate hunger of lesser tyrants still causes suffering among the living? It is the destiny of we mortals to live freely, unbound by fear-”

“Not a tyrant.”

That got a response from the little villagers. Small gasps and exchanged glances. Most probably never knew that Klothys could talk until just then. The little talker just smiled and turned back to the Champion. The Champion nodded, and took up her weapons. Her bronze was polished brighter than any Klothys had ever seen. The shine of it made her dizzy.

And the sharpness of it made her bleed. The spear moved like a swift; the blade sliced her ankles and butt battered her heels, bringing Klothys to her knees. When she bore down on the champion, the little hero swung her shield so the sunlight glinted off the polished bronze and cut Klothys’s vision like a sword. Tears poured from her eye. She stumbled about blindly on her elbows and knees. Klothys howled. She ripped up bushes and boulders to find the hero, but her hands never found the slippery little human.

One of the flung boulders did, however. When Klothys’s vision cleared, she found the champion lying a short distance away, leg shattered, and arm bleeding freely.

The champion flung her spear at Klothys. That was strange. The little ones before had mostly moaned and screamed when hurt so badly. When Klothys swatted the spear aside the champion cast her helmet. It bounced off Klothys’s knee. It stung, to be sure, but Klothys could not find it to begrudge the hero her last efforts.

Hair spilled out over the champion’s face. Black and wet with sweat, framing grit teeth and scarred cheeks. Blood trickled over one eye, wetting it shut. The other glared up at Klothys. There was none of the fear of the soldier. None of the anger of the other heroes…

…and nothing left to throw. The champion held her arms wide. There was expectation in that single, staring eye. Expectation…acceptance? Klothys paused.

The champion’s gaze never wavered, not even when Klothys finally brought her fist down, and drove the little hero’s corpse into the dirt.

Tears were already streaming down the child’s face. The villagers only nodded among themselves, or stared at the spot where the hero had knelt. The talker was silent a long while before clearing her throat.

“Destiny is not always kind. Not in its middle, or at its end.” Her voice carried fast over the hilltop. “Destiny is fought for by the living. We each have our path, and those paths will cross with others many times in the course of things. Sometimes when a path merges with another, it does not emerge again. It is not tragedy that a destiny should come to an end, merely a sign of a greater path rising.”

She gave Klothys one last look, and departed with the others.

***

 _So it was destiny that the little heroes should come and die._ That was not so simple, and it sat uneasily in Klothys’s mind. It seemed…cruel. Did these little creatures really have such little choice in their lives?

***

Still, it made sense to Klothys. It was _her_ nature to eat and be strong. It was the nature of the small to be crushed under her heel. Was that destiny? Did some of the little creatures of the world really think it was in their future to bring Klothys low?

If one of the little mortals was strong enough, if one of these heroes had the will, Klothys supposed it might well be their destiny to strike her down, but she couldn’t begin to imagine such a creature.

The next hero came, a grim, red-finned creature who smelled like brine, with a jagged bident that made waves rise out of the grass. She tried to explain to him what she had learned. Tried to explain that destiny, the cruel thing, had sent him here to die. It seemed only right to warn him. He was so surprised to hear Klothys speak that he just gaped until she dropped a boulder on his head.

  
  


The little talker lingered after the villagers had escorted the brine-hero’s companions away. Klothys liked to slink off and rest after fighting, but curiosity kept her.

“You took my words to heart, mistress cyclops?”

“Scary words.” Klothys crouched down to look at the talker. She had never liked the taste of the little creatures that spoke, never really looked to harm one unless they tried to fight her. Still, it was strange to have one speak to her so… casually.

“Scary? Even for one as powerful as you?”

“Scary for _you_.” Klothys jabbed a finger at the little talker. “ _I_ not scared. I fight and win. That my destiny. Humans fight too, but they fight and lose. Should give up bad destiny.”

The little talker laughed. As wonderful as her voice was, the laugh was even sweeter to Klothys’s ears. “Mistress cyclops, not every destiny is a success. Agrippa understood that. I would not have spoken for her otherwise. Not all destined to fight are destined to win. Some will lose and lose badly. Knowing which is not for us mortals to know.” She leaned up toward Klothys, and thought the distance between them hardly changed with that small gesture, the little talker still whispered her next words.

“I suspect it may not even be for the gods to know.”

And with that, she gave Klothys another of her lingering looks, and turned to go.

Klothys felt a strange warmth in her cheeks. The little talker had definitely smiled at her that time.

***

 _A destiny could lead anywhere._ That _was_ scary, Klothys supposed, but not really anything new.

***

The healer came with the next hero, a stout human all clad in bronze that looked like gold. Klothys almost didn’t notice the healer huddling in the hero’s shadow, but satyrs rarely came to the valley, and her horns were curious to look at.

The hero was quick in spite of his armor and the massive hammer he wielded. The weapon burned like fire whenever he landed a blow, and his armor burned with the same heat when Klothys finally grabbed him up. For all that, he still burst like any other mortal when she squeezed him tight.

She bellowed all that evening in a grazing field. The armor left burns on her palm and fingers. Angry, red, peeling burns. Burns so painful Klothys squished her supper in frustration, and had to scrape lamb-flesh from her palm.

The little satyr-healer came to see Klothys just before sunrise. She approached slowly, nervously, holding out a leather bag with both hands. Klothys was almost too miserable to move more than it took to sit up and inspect her guest.

“Th-the philosopher. She said you…she said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

The healer was smiling at Klothys. A small, scared-looking smile that wobbled with her voice.

“Does it hurt?” The healer pointed at Klothys’s hand. “I have…I can help with that, if you would like.” She came just within an arm’s reach, and set her bag down. She took out clay pots, marked with bright colors, visible even in the low light. “M-may I help?”

Klothys considered the little healer, and what she had said. Philosopher. That meant ‘talker.’ So the talker had sent her, and the talker was not afraid of Klothys. Surely the talker would have come herself, if she meant Klothys harm. Or perhaps she was too clever to try and kill Klothys in person.

Pain throbbed in Klothys’s hand, and she grumbled at the hurt. The little satyr flinched, but did not shy away.

_Very brave. Come to heal me as bravely as the heroes come to kill me._

Klothys lowered her hand to the ground.

The little healer’s pots were full of pastes that smelled like hay and sunflowers. The healer spread them on Klothys’s burns with trembling hands, and stole away the pain little by little with every dab.

“I wish you hadn’t killed Theleus.” The little satyr’s voice was high-pitched and she spoke quickly, her words tumbling together. “He…he wasn’t very kind, but he only wanted to protect people from monsters.”

“Not a monster,” Klothys rumbled.

The little healer nodded. “The philosopher said that too. Said that we shouldn’t be angry that you, um… that you defend yourself.” She fell silent and busied herself with bandages before speaking again. “I’m…I’m trying not to be. My mother taught me how to make others well. It’s what I know. So as long as you’re hurt… I suppose I’ll help.”

Klothys had nothing to say to that, so she only nodded. Her head felt warm and stiff from her sleepless night, and as the sun rose over the hills, her eye slipped closed, and Klothys drifted away.

When she awoke, the sky overhead was the smoldering orange of late afternoon.

The healer was gone. Klothys patted her hand against her belly, and found her fingers swaddled in bandages. There was a dull throb, but the pain was gone.

“Very good, isn’t she?”

Klothys started, and scrambled to her feet. The talker was there, sitting on a boulder by the edge of the field. “The satyr culture of excess and festivity must by necessity produce those gifted at healing the bruises of careless revels.”

Klothys grumbled and cradled her hand as she sat back down. “Burns worse than bruises.”

“I suppose they _are_ more painful.” The talker pursed her lips, and stepped up from the boulder to approach Klothys. “Thank you for letting her help you. That hero of hers filled her head with all sorts of stories. That you would eat her if he failed.”

“Never eat a satyr,” Klothys snorted. “Better things to eat in the valley. Being a meal… not her _destiny_.” She grinned down at the talker. She hoped it was a good grin. She didn’t have many others to smile at most of the time.

It must have been a good grin, because the talker laughed. “No. Not destined to do much, that one. A very sweet satyr though. She’ll be welcome in the valley, destiny or no destiny.”

“Destined…destined to heal. To make pain go away.” Klothys waved her hand in front of the Talker. “Good destiny. Good path. It _is_ a good path to cross with.”

The talker paused. Her face was blank, and for a moment Klothys worried she’d said something wrong. The worry didn’t make much sense, as she didn’t have much reason to care what a little human thought, but then why did the smile that came a second later make her heart beat so harshly?

“I suppose _is_ a good destiny to heal, even if one doesn’t heal heroes or kings.” She raised an eyebrow. “But do you _really_ think being eaten is a destiny?”

“Hrm. Bad destiny for cows.” Klothys patted her belly. “But good for me.”

“Good for you, bad for animals.” The talker turned away toward the hills. “And bad for the villagers. I’ve come to ask you a favor. A trade, in exchange for the services of our destined healer.”

“What trade?”

“The next time you need a meal, call for me. I’ll bet I could hear you most anywhere in this valley. I can speak with the villagers about sending along a meal for you without you needing to knock over any homes or harm any of the good people here.”

Klothys frowned at the talker. “Would take longer for food. Don’t like… I don’t like to wait.”

“Maybe, but wouldn’t it be nice not to have a fuss raised at you every time you get hungry? To get your food without causing harm and grief? Imagine a creature bigger than yourself coming to this valley and harming _you_ to get what it wanted-”

“Happens all the time. Don’t have to imagine.”

The talker went quiet again. Klothys wondered if her voice had broken. The little folk were so delicate. She hoped very badly she hadn’t broken that lovely voice.

“I’m sorry,” The talker said at last. “That sounds dreadful. What sort of…?”

“Monsters.”

“Monsters, yes. What kind have come here?”

Klothys shrugged. “Hydra. Dragon. Katoblepas. Thypon, once. They not come into valley long. I see to that.”

The talker was quiet again, but not for as long. “That must be very trying. Would you not prefer to live in peace?”

Klothys chewed on her lip. “Good at fighting. Don’t mind fighting…but…would be nice to not _have_ to fight all the time.”

“I’m sure the citizens of the valley feel the same way. Wouldn’t that be a great gift to them, to obtain your food peacefully?”

“Hm.” Klothys rubbed her chin. “Hydras attack. _I_ attack _._ It…It in our nature.”

“ _I_ think you are cleverer than a hydra, mistress cyclops. Beasts have natures. You can have a destiny. A destiny you get to choose for yourself. A peaceful one, even.” When Klothys didn’t answer, the talker continued. “The people here have lives to live, same as you. Destinies of their own, shall we say.” The talker rubbed her hands together. “Yes, destinies. As you say, even the small destinies matter. It’s how we’re remembered, after all.”

“Remembered,” Klothys repeated. “Yes, important. Best cyclopses remembered for great feats.”

“Would you rather the people here remember you for the monsters you fought, or for the way you terrorized them?”

Klothys didn’t have a reason to want the little people to be happy. She didn’t have a reason to want to make this talker happy, even if her voice was soft and lovely.

Still, she nodded. “I call. Then food?”

“Yes. I’ll bring the food.” The talker turned to go. Right before she reached the edge of the field, she turned back and called out. “And perhaps a bit of company, too?”

Klothys nodded, and made another grin.

She liked grinning.

***

 _A destiny was something you chose_. That was a nice thing to think. That Klothys could have any destiny she wanted. It seemed too easy though; not _quite_ the way things really worked in the world.

***

  
  


The healer came again, after the next hero cut into Klothys’s leg with a whip that trailed black smoke. The wound stung and hung open, and Klothys spent another night wailing until the little satyr appeared with her bag and her pots.

She wasn’t alone. The hero with the whip had been accompanied by a weaver; an old minotaur with fur white as fleece, horns full of thread, and a bag full of needles. While the little healer cleaned Klothys’s wound, the weaver stitched up the cuts. The threads pulled her flesh back together. The balms stopped the stinging and the pain.

The weaver worked in silence, perhaps upset that Klothys had ripped her whip-hero in two. The little healer was full of enough energy for both of them, and talked all through her work.

“And you really should wear some kind of armor. It would cost a lot of gold to make anything out of bronze for someone as big as you but it would be worth it if it keeps you safe. Oh, but then I suppose it would be tough for a hero to beat you, wouldn’t it. I guess I don’t mind if you don’t get beaten though, if you’re not going to be causing trouble for the people here any more.”

The little healer had a nice enough voice, Klothys supposed. Easy to listen to, but not a delight, like the talker’s was.

“Anyways, this should heal much faster once miss weaver is done over there. I can do stitches for most folk, but for someone as big as you… I’ll have to have her teach me her techniques. You’ll do that, won’t you, miss weaver?”

The weaver raised her snout from her work, slowly. Spools of thread hung from nails hammered into her horns. Her eyes, Klothys noted, were almost as pale as her fur, and when she spoke she looked up into the sky, rather than at the healer.

“ _If_ you settle down long enough to be taught, little goat. Better to show this big oaf how to handle the needle and thread herself, I think.”

Klothys wrinkled her nose. “What for?”

“To save me the time,” The weaver huffed. “I’ve got tapestries and garments for heroes to craft. I can’t be fooling around with my arms up to the elbows in blood and skin.”

“No one’s making you stay,” The healer replied. Klothys didn’t _think_ the little the little satyr meant anything cruel by it, but the minotaur still bristled at the comment, and pinched the next fold of skin just a little harder.

“Plenty of heroes come wandering into this valley, I’m told.” The weaver jabbed the needle through Klothys’s thick skin in one deft, brutal motion. “Might as well stay. That philosopher of yours has a good way with words. I’m sure she’ll see a scene worthy of my talents eventually. Until then I want this big brute in as fit shape as possible. I won’t waste my time depicting the slaying of a cyclops already at death’s door.”

The little healer set down her pots and scrambled over Klothys’s leg to look at the weaver. “How could you make a picture anyways, if you can’t see anything? I had to walk you all the way here.”

“Feh! I’ve been working the needle since before any of you were born. I can tell a thread’s color by touch alone. I could reproduce a hundred scenes just from memory. Don’t you worry about how I’ll make my tapestries, little goat. I was born to weave.”

“Destiny.” Klothys nodded, understanding. “Destined to weave.”

“Destined, feh! I worked hard for my skills. Destiny’s got nothing to do with it.” The weaver knotted the end of the stitching, and severed the wire with a pair of shears. “Now get up on that leg. Got to make sure the stitches hold.”

It took a day’s rest before Klothys could stand without pain. Three days later she felt well enough to walk. Four days beyond that and she had the strength to walk to the village.

The handful of distant cottages had swelled with the many travelers left behind by heroes and champions. Tents were scattered across the valley foothills. Little children, satyr, human, and centaur alike, who had once carried weapons for warriors now helped in the fields and the vineyards. Youths who had followed heroes for love or out of admiration helped the blacksmith, the tanner, and the woodworker with their labors. Warrior companions harvested fruit in the groves.

  
  


Klothys, of course, only caught a glimpse of this activity before her appearance sent all the little folk screaming and running.

It had never felt wrong, scaring the little ones, whenever Klothys was hungry and wanted a meal. This time she had only wanted to talk, and it felt… uncomfortable? It was small consolation that, when the talker strode down the hill to meet Klothys, she was smiling.

“I’m happy to see you on the mend, mistress cyclops, but I would have come with some food if only you’d called. I can’t show you my promise is good if you don’t give me the chance.”

“Not hungry.” Klothys rumbling belly gave the lie to that statement almost right away, but she just flushed and kept speaking. “Wanted to see you. Talk with you.”

The talker made a face that Klothys couldn’t quite place. Her mahogany cheeks looked… redder?

“Well…how can I say no? Wait here a moment. I’ll have the cook prepare you a sow.”

With that the talker was away back up the hill, into the spread of tents and houses. Klothys stood amid the tents, shuffling her feet as little as possible to avoid knocking anything down. A few of the little folk, a priestess, a drunken old man, and a centaur with a broken leg, had remained in the village, and regarded Klothys warily. Some of the little folk who’d fled or hid started to make their slow way back up the hill, or to peek out of their homes. The stares made Klothys anxious, so she left and sat in a grazing field, rubbing her aching leg. The healer had left her with a big cauldron of the sweet-smelling paste for her wounds, and it cooled the pain a bit.

“Pernatos, no!”

Klothys blinked and looked down. A little child, one of the villagers’ children, had wandered out onto the field, and was waddling toward Klothys’s foot. The little healer burst out of a copse of nearby trees, shouting after it.

“Get back! Oh! Sorry miss cyclops.” The healer scooped up the child in her arms right before she could grab at Klothys’s toe. “Some of the little ones were curious. I said they’d be better off not bothering you.”

Klothys squinted at the copse, and sure enough, three more children were huddled around the trunks, staring back at her.

“Big lady.”

The first child was leaning out of the healer’s arms, still trying to get a hand on Klothys’s foot. Klothys slid her leg forward, and felt the faintest tickle as a tiny palm scraped against her toe.

“Big,” The child added, nodding to herself.

“Certainly is, little troublemaker.” The healer put the child down, but watched her warily as she waddled around Klothys’s foot. The other children dared a little nearer, a few steps, then a few more. By the time the talker returned with a trio of other humans bearing a fat hog on a spit and a barrel, they were only a few yards away.

“Oh good, you found some company.” The talker directed the others to set the hog in front of Klothys. “The first of many peaceful meals. The butcher didn’t like the idea of cooking it up for you, but I made an appeal to his pride.”

Klothys laughed as she plucked up the spit, and the humans that had carried it retreated back up the hill. “Little human kill pig. What so tough about _that_?” She bit into the pig, ripping its belly out. “Nothing to be proud abou-” Klothys paused mid-chew. The pig tasted different. Good different. Like there was something on the skin that made it crispy and sweet, and something inside it that was more than just meat.

“Stuffed with its own meat ground up and mixed with peppers, then covered in honey and roasted. A traditional meal for greeting strangers in the valley, I’m told, along with this.”

The talker gestured toward the barrel. Klothys slurped down the rest of the pig, chewing it a bit longer than was her habit to stretch out that lovely flavor, then grabbed up the barrel. The liquid inside was red like blood, but tasted strange and bitter. Klothys spat it out into the air.

“Not a fan of reds, I’ll be sure to pass that along to the winemaker.” The talker sat down on the discarded barrel. “How have the days been since your last victory?”

“Full of hurt,” Klothys grumbled, tapping her leg. “But full of help, too.” She pulled up the tarp of her loincloth to show the long scar running from shin to hip.

“They did a good job on you.” The little talker looked away, back at Klothys’s thigh, then away again. There _was_ red in her cheeks. “Heroes… heroes have brought you wounds, but quite a few good people into your life as well.”

“Brought you.”

“Yes…” The talker smiled up at Klothys. “…me. But also a willing physician, and a skilled worker of thread to keep you… keep you whole. Your path is intertwining with many interesting destinies.”

Klothys ran a finger along her stitches. “Cow-weaver…says it’s not destiny. Says she worked for her skills. Lots of practice.”

“An interesting perspective. What do _you_ think?”

“Think… I think skill part of destiny. If destiny a road, skill just make the road better. Practice… practice is the work to pave your destiny path.”

“Hm.” The talker rubbed her chin. “And what practice do _you_ do, mistress cyclops, on the path of your destiny?”

Klothys shrugged. “Heroes keep coming. Keep giving me practice. You?”

The talker spread her arms. “This. I talk. I listen. I think. Back home I matched my wits against other students and teachers of philosophy. When I stopped learning from them, I wandered the world.”

“Dangerous to walk the world with just your words.”

“You might be surprised,” The talker said with a smile. “The right words can win you the company of warriors enough to travel safely where titans and monsters tread. The right words might even sway a great beast’s heart. I’ve found myself swept up in the current of many more… forceful destinies, but I’ve had good enriching experiences along the way.”

“Current?”

“Ah, I’m mixing metaphors. Some destinies are like a road. Others…well, some roads have so many travelers on them, so many others who are swept up in the wake of the one who walks at the head of the crowd, it’s easy to get swept up in the rush.”

Klothys nodded. “Like your sun hero?”

“Exactly like the Champion of the Sun.”

“Sun champion… your friend. I kill them, but you still friendly with me?”

The little talker made a face of thinking, and nodded slowly. Klothys leaned toward her. The very best of the words came after the quiet. After the thinking.

“It’s a dangerous destiny these heroes have. They intersect with so many others, for more intense and much shorter spans of time than most any of us intersect with one another. Their destinies are direct and violent, and for all the good they do, so many other destinies are trampled along the way.”

Klothys considered that.

“ _I_ trample.”

“That’s true.” The little talker sat herself on the ground, cross-legged. “But _you_ are alive, and every living thing has the right to fight for its destiny. You eat the flocks and chase away the others smaller than you, but you do it to live. I… I could not begrudge you your right to live.”

“Mmmm… thank you.” Klothys leaned forward, and gingerly patted the talker on the head. There must have been something funny about it because the little talker was reduced to a giggling fit.

***

 _A destiny required work._ Klothys had suspected as much. That was fine. She didn’t mind work.

***


	2. Chapter 2

The heroes kept coming, bearing axes, staves, and all sorts of strange magics; some cast bolts of lightning. Others conjured snakes out of cloth. Klothys dealt with each in turn, under the watchful eyes of the villagers. The monsters came too, as they always did, and some of the more daring villagers would now come running at the sound of commotion to see Klothys drive off the latest lamia or serpent.

  
  


Her wounds became fewer as she grew stronger and more wily, every challenge adding scars, but also muscle and experience. The fights went from thrilling, to engaging, to almost routine.

Klothys didn’t mind. For the first time there was more to look forward to than just little heroes.

True to her word, the talker appeared whenever Klothys called, every time with an animal cooked a new way. It took a long time for the food to come, but the company after the wait was always worth it. After several calls, The talker began responding much quicker, and the little humans that carried the meals would even stop and rest a while before running away. After three months, the talker was bringing the food just as Klothys would be thinking to call for it.

“Always hungry two days after a fight, sweet Klothys.” The hero said with a sly little smile. “You should take care about being so predictable.”

“Predictable!” One of the children repeated. More and more of the _very_ little ones came along when the talker allowed it, and snuck along with the healer at a distance even when she didn’t. They were not quite bold enough to come as close as the talker did, but played without a care in Klothys’s shadow.

“It because… it _is_ because you know so much of destiny,” Klothys muttered. “You know things.”

The little talker laughed. “I’m not some prophet, just observant. I don’t think destiny is such a predictable thing, anyways.”

“Destiny a road, though. Everyone knows where a road goes. Road won’t move.”

“Destiny _is_ a road, yes.” The speaker settled herself on the grass, sitting up, then thought better of it and lay down in the field, looking up at Klothys. “But you don’t know where the road goes until you walk it. And a road can have many forks.”

“Mmmm.” Klothys took another bite of her supper as she mulled that over. A whole cow, filled with chickpea paste and garlic. She liked the way the garlic bit her tongue. “Road incomplete sometimes, too.”

“Yes! Take for example…” The talker pointed off in the direction of the children. “Them. You can guess at a destiny sometimes. A smith’s apprentice is likely to become a smith. The herder’s daughter is likely to tend to livestock. But you can’t always tell on sight. Many of these children are orphans, adopted by traveling warriors and left here after… after their destinies did not go to plan. Their futures are entirely their own to make. Gods willing, I suppose.”

“Gods?” Klothys cocked her head. “ _We_ choose destiny, I think. Thought. Sometimes hard, but we choose what we pursue.” She frowned. “Maybe not though. World hard. Life _is_ hard.”

“And the gods harder, sometimes.” The talker looked past Klothys. At the sky. “Take all these heroes. Powerful destinies all set in motion by gods.”

“Never met a god,” Klothys muttered. “Can’t be quite as clever as you.”

The talker laughed, and squirmed in a strange way in the grass. “None of what I say is gospel, you know. I’m still trying to figure out what I think ‘destiny’ even means. I just like the thought of… well, the thought of having something in my life I’m meant to do. Something _important_. It’s a bit self-indulgent, but I’ve decided to make destiny my life’s work. To immortalize it as a concept that all people can embrace. I’d like that to be my destiny, so as long as I’m alive, I’ll strive towards it.”

Klothys nodded. “Good destiny. Good for you. You’re clever. More clever than most little people.” She tapped her head. “Brain big like a cyclops.”

“I don’t know about clever… though I’ve got them all puzzling over the concept of destiny up in the village,” The talker grinned. “People have so many opinions, it’s good to hear them all.”

“Mine too?”

The talker nodded. “One might argue – one much less clever than I am, mind you – that a cyclops could only ever be a brute who terrorizes all the land. But here you are, protector of a peaceful valley, beloved by… well, some portion of the people that live in it, and a decent philosopher, on top of it all.”

Klothys flexed her arms. “I am a brute, too. Strongest brute in the world. Strong mind. Stronger body.”

The children must have liked that, for the started flexing and strutting in imitation. The laughs from the talker and the healer were nicest of all. Klothys was getting rather good at jokes.

***

_If a destiny can be chosen, and a destiny must be worked for, then destiny must be something you could_ make. But how did you go about making a destiny?

***

The weaver attended each challenge without fail, the little healer at her elbow, constantly chattering away, describing as much of the fight as she could. Even when Klothys battled the hero who cast small disks that exploded with the sound of thunder, she could hear the satyr chattering away to the minotaur in her breathless, frantic way.

Klothys was curious what the experience must be like, to be witness to such fights without seeing them, so when the next hero, a centaur with a spear as long as a tree, came galloping into the valley, Klothys covered her eye and ran up the hill to meet him. The hero earned a savage strike at Klothys’s hip, but the adrenaline of the added challenge carried Klothys through the pain. She snatched up the centaur by listening for the beat of his hooves, and hurled him back over the rim of the valley, uncovering her eye in time to see him blot out the smallest patch of the sun.

“Hail Klothys the mighty!” The little healer was jumping and pumping her arm in the air. “Slayer of champions! She can knock them down without even looking!” The child next to her took up the cheer, then one of the food bearers. Then another.

Klothys stared at the villagers as they all took up a cheer in her name. When had their tears turned to smiles?

The centaur’s companions, a small troop of armed humans, looked utterly vexed. When the talker went to invite them back to the village, they were too baffled to offer any argument, even when Klothys followed after them, and found to her own surprise that not one of the little folk objected to her company.

“Don’t you mind it?” One of the companions asked after he’d taken some wine and food. He was eyeing Klothys, and the little children scrambling over her legs at play. “More than a dozen heroes have come to this valley and never emerged.”

“Some heroes,” The weaver cackled. “When I was a young bull, you’d never have seen a god’s champion fall as easily as the ones that come wandering here.” She had set up a loom outside the village’s small temple, and a small crowd had gathered around to take supper as they watched her work on the details of the latest battle.

“That one,” the weaver said, pointing in entirely the opposite direction from Klothys, “Was born to crush false heroes. To separate the wheat from the chaff.”

That got a light laugh from the villagers, which was quickly stifled by the grim, sad-little looks on the faces of the companions.

The little healer piped up. “It’s destiny, isn’t that right?” she nudged the talker, who was sat next to her on the temple steps. “Our Klothys is going to make this valley the safest place in all Theros. No monsters or heroes will come muscling in here while _she_ ’ _s_ around.”

“Safe is good,” one of the shepherds nodded. “A bit dull sometimes. Always nice and lively to see one of your heroes come and have a little scrap with our Klothys. She’d a frightful thing, but better than some of those other things that come creeping near the valley.”

“Heroes are the only hope this world has!” Another of the companions, a tanned human with a braided beard, stood from his spot. “Have any of you seen the world outside? The titans bring disaster wherever they go, and you can hardly walk a mile for monsters. How can you look at this like it’s… like it’s some kind of _game_? There will never be peace without the strength of our heroes!”

“Hardly.” The priestess had emerged from the little temple, her arms folded in front of her. “No champion who has ever sought hospitality in our village has given a second thought to the people here, except to save them for their own glory. All they want are more worshipers for their personal patron gods, or servants to bear their arms, or for our children to follow them to war.” She turned a harsh gaze on the talker. “ _You_ gave a little speech making it all seem quite grand when you first arrived, don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

The talker nodded. “That’s so. I hope I’ve done my part to make up for my words since then.”

“Small steps.” The priestess turned her glare up at Klothys. The little woman was smaller than most of the other humans, but she made Klothys feel smaller still with that look. “The cyclops I’ve grown used to. All this blasphemous talk of destiny, on the other hand…”

“It’s rather interesting, I think,” one of the shepherds ventured. “It’s a… nice…? Yeah, nice way of looking at life.”

“ _Fate_ is where you should be putting your faith,” the priestess returned. “Not destiny. Not some foolish concept of humanity defying the divine.”

“Destiny, fate…” The companion with the braided beard collapsed back onto a bench. “What’s the difference, I’d like to know?”

The answer came from a dozen places at once as the entire village burst into debate.

“It’s how you make every day different!” The smith’s apprentice shouted.

“Destiny is what I make of my life,” The little healer said, grinning.

“A life true to desires!” The village drunk hollered, raising a wine-skin. “Lived to the fullest!”

“I think it’s the future we make with our actions,” the little talker said. “And action that frees us from fate.”

“Freedom of the living to choose the story they live,” Klothys ventured, though the little folk were too hot in discussion to notice. Klothys frowned. She’d thought about how to put her thoughts into words for a while, and now no one had heard. The talker gave her a warm smile, at least.

“The fates know all,” the priestess was saying, gesturing wildly. “The threads of our lives are known from birth. Perhaps not to us, but known to… well, to fate.”

“Bah!” The weaver spat in the dirt. “Pretty pathetic threads, if you ask me. I prefer an interesting weave to a predictable one.”

“Yeah, what good’s something you can’t change?” The smith was crossing her arms like the priestess, but nodding up at Klothys, then at the other villagers around her. “Now destiny, that I’ve liked the sound of. Like making a tool at the forge. Good ore makes good metal. Good strikes make good shapes. The future’s something you forge. Something like that?”

“I haven’t got a forge,” the baker replied, frowning. “Does that mean I won’t have a destiny?”

“No, Adrian, not a real forge. I mean, You’ve got your oven, right? And you put all sorts of things into your breads?”

“Of course?”

“Then destiny is like… you get your destiny out of the ingredients you put into your bread.”

“Not literally,” the smith added, as the baker scratched his chin.

“All get a destiny,” Klothys rumbled. “Destiny is something we get to chase after.”

“What’s my destiny then?” The baker asked. “To bake bread?”

“Your _fate_ is whatever the gods have decided-” The priestess began.

“I mean, I _like_ baking bread.” The baker kept talking, heedless of the priestess. “My pa told me my great-grandfather could bake bread so sweet and wholesome that a fellow could run to the end of the world and back on a single bite. I’d like to do that. You all like that I bake bread, right?”

“It’s your best feature, Adrian.” The village drunk punched the baker’s arm good-naturedly. Others murmured less backhanded compliments.

“Well _I’ve_ decided on the destiny of a chef!” The butcher declared. “I’ll say there’s not a better cook in all the valley than I. How many here have satisfied a cyclops’s’ appetite?” The villagers all laughed at that, though a few slapped the butcher on the back. The little healer said something too low for Klothys to hear that caused the talker to blush.

“And Della can be the greatest priestess of the sun in all the land!” One of the shepherds called. The priestess made a vague gesture of dismissal, but blushed despite herself.

“I want to be big, like Klothys!” One of the girls shouted. She jumped up on the lip of the well for emphasis.

“Then chase that destiny!” Klothys roared, clenching her fist.

The villagers fell silent.

A shiver of fear crossed Klothys’s shoulders for a split second, but then the smith threw up her arms and echoed the cheer, and all the village with her.

***

_All the living want to pursue a destiny_. But sometimes destinies conflicted. How then could it be made that everyone had a chance at a destiny?

***

Klothys repeated the trick of covering her eye with the next hero. And the next. The villagers enjoyed it, and it brought back some excitement to the battles. She even dared try the stunt when a bronze-fanged chimera landed in the vineyards on the far end of the valley. One hand was not quite enough, however, and she got a nasty clawing along her arm. She broke the beasts neck with both hands, and staggered back to the village, wounded, a little humbled, and fully red in the face.

The weaver cackled when Klothys regaled the little ones with the fight. “That stunt of yours makes for a good tale, but if you get killed your tales just a farce.”

She was supervising Klothys’s first attempt to stitch up her own wounds with twine and a needle specially forges by the smith for a cyclops’ hand. “Fine to do what you’re good at with your eyes closed, but in a scrap you need all the hands you’ve got. Why I remember when I was younger-”

“Kruphix blesses his devout with extra arms sometimes,” The talker mused from her seat next to the weaver. “I can’t say I regret my time as an acolyte of Athreos, or having struck out on my own intellectual path, but I wonder sometimes if it was a missed opportunity.”

  
  


“You’re lovely with the arms you’ve got, my willow!” The healer called down. The little satyr was perched on Klothys’s knee, also supervising the stitching, and applying salve when needed.

“Thank you, my dear,” The talker called back. The weaver just snorted.

Klothys kept her face as still as possible. Those were new names they were calling each other.

“In any case,” the weaver growled, “I’ve got something for you if you still want to show off against those god-stroked blowhards.” She stood up from the blanket, pulling it up by a corner. “Blindfold, specially woven by the greatest weaver in all Theros for your foolish face.”

“Didn’t I see _you_ weaving those just last week?” The healer called down.

“You did,” the weaver replied. She tapped the talker with her hoof. Up you go, fancy-girl. I want to hear how it looks on the big oaf.”

The talker scrambled up to her feet, and the weaver dumped the whole of the cloth bundle into her arms. She spent a long minute looking Klothys up and down. The cloth looked heavy, but not nearly heavy enough for her to be as flustered as she appeared.

Klothys set the needle down and placed the back of her good hand flat against the earth for the talker to climb into. Her feet tickled Klothys’s palm, and then her shoulder once she’d been lifted up.

“Well,” The talker muttered as she steadied herself in Klothys’s clavicle, “Thank you for having me up here today.”

Klothys laughed at that, and held her head still as the talker unfurled the cloth.

“I was wondering, if it is agreeable to you…” The talker threw a fold of the fabric over Klothys’s ear. “…I would like to dissuade our next visitor from fighting you, if possible. It seems to me that, while they live, they deserve at least the chance to go find easier prey than you.”

Klothys pondered that a moment, and nodded. “Up to them. I not… I won’t fight those that don’t want to fight.”

“Thank you.”

“How’s the view up there, love?” The satyr was cupping hands around her mouth, watching the talker work at the blindfold.

“Quite spectacular, my dear. I’ll have to visit more often.”

“You… you like her?” Klothys tried to make her whisper to the talker sound… casual? Unaffected? Like she didn’t actually care quite a lot about this development, but needed something to chat about while she wrapped the other side of the blindfold across her face. The fabric folded up, and Klothys could still see out of it, partially.

“You could say that.” The talker didn’t bother to lower her voice, or suppress her smile. “I’m more than a bit fond of her.”

“We’re both awful fond of you too, Klothys.” Then the little healer did something strange. She bent down over Klothys’s hand, and planted a kiss on her finger. Klothys felt her whole face grow warm.

“Doubly so when you blush, sweet Klothys.” Klothys felt the peck of the talker’s lips on her cheek. “Such a lovely shade of red.”

Klothys pulled the blindfold the rest of the way down. The flush flowed from warm to hot, and Klothys felt her whole body might turn red.

***

Faced with a crowd of cheering villagers, a valley seemingly untouched by a monster’s ravages, and a cyclops bearing an ornamented blindfold, quite a few heroes did take the option to leave the valley in peace. One even decided to stay, plying her bow-work to hunting game, or helping Klothys drive off the occasional monster.

A good deal many heroes did not stand down. These ones made it clear they were set on adding to their renown, or carrying out the directives of their patron, or simply ignoring the possibility that there might be a cyclops that the people _didn’t_ want dead. So they fought Klothys, and they fell.

Klothys took care to look the heroes in the face when they arrived, and to look on them again as they were laid to rest. They were kindred by destiny; warriors set against each other by the path their natures led them down, and she owed them at least acknowledgment as their paths ended. Some of the villagers took on the habit, requesting blindfolds from the weaver, and lifting them only right before and after the fights. How unnerving it must be to do combat in front of such an audience, Klothys could only guess.

For her own part, the weaver was immensely satisfied.

“They’ll tell stories for centuries now,” she remarked after the latest hero’s companions trudged out of the valley. “The cyclops who slew blindfolded. ‘and where did that great brute get her blindfold,’ they’ll ask!”

The healer raised an eyebrow at that. “They won’t know your name, though.”

“No but they’ll remember the garment,” The weaver cackled. “I am my works, and my works are me. I weave destiny with my own two hands, and leave them for history to ponder.”

After so many victories, it should have been less of a surprise when the challengers began trying to fell Klothys outside of combat. The villagers caught a hero sowing the wheat fields with salt to starve Klothys, and ejected him themselves. Another tried to take the guise of the weaver, but Klothys smelled human blood on his horns, and struck him down before he could take her by surprise. One cunning human even made it all the way to Klothys’s mealtime in the guise of a friend, but mistakenly assumed Klothys would drink from the barrel of poisoned wine she had brought. Klothys tossed both her and the barrel across the valley. The village drunk had already gotten into the wine, unfortunately, and was violently ill for days after. Mercifully, his great tolerance for drink kept him alive.

“Reckless destinies,” The talker muttered after this last one. “Roads that tear up the paths of others. It’s a dangerous thing to let one with power run wild on the notion that their path in life should take priority over another’s.”

Klothys could only nod. Between the lives of the little ones that came to kill her, and the lives of the little ones who made the valley home, there was no choice.

***

_Destiny is a collective effort. Nothing happens in isolation_. If in doing her duty to the villagers, she protected their futures, that was destiny enough for Klothys.

***

Two weeks after the poison-hero fell, the storm struck.

It was Uro. No storm not stirred by a titan could have raged so savagely, battering the woods with raindrops like arrows, tearing limbs from trees and flinging them up into the sky. The furthest end of the valley was almost an hour’s walk to the shore, but the sea-titan’s calamities reached far.

For all that, the village was in as high spirits as any could hope for. They crowded every structure in the village, sharing rooms and warm spaces while the storm raged. The tents had been collapsed at the first sign of high winds, and the many extra hands meant that several stables and the temple had been reinforced as shelters against harsh weather. Klothys lent a hand erecting a barricade to divert water around the village in case the storm lasted long enough to cause a flood.

And it did. A week passed without a lessening of the rain or wind. Thunder broke the deafening drum and howl with irregular frequency, and lightning was the only source of light through most of the day. Whatever mischief the titan was up to out at sea, it promised to be a prolonged affair.

Klothys carried necessary supplies back and forth to the village, and escorted the villagers on occasional inspections of the buildings and the fields. Mostly she tried to rest under the torrent.

It was a danger for the little folk. But a storm generated by a divine conflict miles away? Keeping heroes and monsters alike from wandering close? It was almost relaxing, in it’s own way.

Still, Klothys kept a watch for danger. The fight might move closer to the valley, so she kept her eye trained on the mountains. One of the villagers might get lost in the storm, so she kept her ears sharp for cries or calls.

In the end, it was the scent of smoke on the wind that alerted her to danger.

The screams followed after.

It smelled almost wrong, that any fire should burn in such a storm. Klothys thundered through the valley as soon as she caught the scent, leaving pits in the earth where she ran. She could barely hear anything for the wind and the thunder, but the screams were there; faint, but undeniable.

The village was burning. Fire crowned every roof and every scrap of tent that the storm hadn’t ripped down. Villagers fled down the hills, across the fields, into the woods. Others were swarming about the buildings. All were screaming, pointing to the dark-shrouded figures in their midst. Figures that lashed out.

Figures that killed.

  
  


One fired a bow into the fleeing crowd. One skewered the butcher as he tried to help others from the burning buildings. One swung a hammer through the village well, and the small stone structure erupted into flames.

Klothys felt her heart skip a beat. She knew that hammer. She knew this… hero.

And that one; the one whose lash of darkness was almost invisible in the storm, but which cut down the little villagers all the same.

This one too, the one who turned the rain into waves, knocking over the buildings which weren’t already aflame.

Klothys snatched up the whip-wielding one first. His golden mask laughed up at her, even as she dashed his body upon the hillside. Then she ripped the stable out of the ground, and placed herself in front of the arrow-firing hero while the villagers still inside the foundation fled down the hill.

Klothys plucked up the grey hero and ripped the bow from his hands. His skin felt cold and pickled. He tried to stab her fingers with an arrow, and she ripped his arm clear from its socket. As she did, she noticed something written on his arm. Just a trick of the low light, Klothys thought. She crushed the murderer and threw him aside.

Rather than touch the hammer-hero and his flames, Klothys scooped up a pile of debris and smothered him beneath it. The wood and stone grew hot, but did not burn the way his armor had. The wave-casting hero she slapped clear out of the village, though not before he washed away the last wall of the cattle stables. She tore away the spear of the centaur-hero and pinned him to the earth with it.

They were all masked, and all of them had the same three names carved into their forearms.

The name of the valley. Of the village. Of Klothys.

Klothys’s confusion was giving way to anger. The destiny of those little heroes had ended. They’d had their chances. How _dare_ they come back here. How _dare_ they cut short the gentle, soft destinies of _her_ little ones.

She pulled the roof off every building she could reach, ignoring the burns to her hands and arms. She smashed every grey-skinned hero in sight, heedless of how their bronze and gold cut into her. Dead villagers mixed with the corpse-heroes among the buildings, but many more of the living fled into the relative safety of the storm. Some even stayed, finding weapons to help Klothys dispatch the attackers.

Klothys was so enraged, so focused on crushing every last one of the corpse-heroes, that when she heard the grumbling of the mountainside, it was too late.

She glanced up to see a wave bearing down on the village. A sliding mass of earth and grass and trees, soaked with storm-waters and blown free by the winds. The wave-casting hero stood above it on the mountaintop, chest caved in from Klothys’s earlier blow, his golden mask illuminated by a long bolt of lightning, pouring water into the thundering tide. It was all Klothys could do to throw her body toward the mass, hoping against hope that the little folk had fled far enough that the landslide would not-

The earth struck, and all went dark.

Klothys came to moments later. It must have been mere moments, for her eye and mouth opened to mud. Thrashing, choking, she pushed herself through the heavy darkness. Up and down were mixed, and Klothys gagged on a mouthful of earth. When one of her arms found air, she pushed herself in that direction with all her might.

The rain was still falling, but the wind was gentler now. The ground all around Klothys was overturned mud wound with shredded grass and trees.

A third of the village was buried. The barricade had diverted a portion of the flow, then collapsed under the weight. Of the little ones who had been helping Klothys, only a few who’d been too far wide of the landslide were visible, shouting and digging helplessly at the dirt. Klothys plunged her own hands into the muck, sifting desperately for anyone, anything she could salvage. She’d created a small swath with her body where the mud had not flowed as thickly, and a few shapes still struggled feebly within.

There were faint sounds booming from beyond the valley now, just audible under the storm. Almost like voices. Almost like… laughter?

Klothys cast it from her mind, and dug. The first few figures were wounded or broken, but lived. The villagers well enough to move on their own dragged them out of the muck as Klothys unearthed them.

The ones further down were still, and the villagers only stared with grim, tired eyes when Klothys pulled these ones from the dirt. The living they lined up and treated as best they could in the shelter of the last standing stable. The dead they lay out further away.

Slowly, others returned. The winemaker and her sons. The farmer with his wife and hired hands. The herders and the orphans, with the little healer leading them. Klothys would have snatched her up and embraced her if she hadn’t been needed to care for the wounded. All the while the far-off sound got louder. The villagers heard it too, and exchanged uneasy glances as they unearthed the buried tracts of the village.

More hands arrived to dig. With every villager returned from the woods or the fields, there were cries and subdued, broken laughs of relief. With every body uncovered, just cries. The butcher… the priestess… When Klothys lifted the weaver’s still form from beneath a fallen shed, she sat back and wept.

The little healer spared a moment to comfort Klothys. To tell her that it would be alright. That most of the village had survived, and more were making their way back in time. Klothys could only nod and return to her digging.

Still the voices and laughter grew louder, more booming. There was a faint light at the horizon. Klothys grew worried again, and with her the rest of the survivors. She walked away down the valley to investigate the sounds, and found nothing but more bodies. Not just villagers, but cattle that had fallen or been stricken with panic. She brought the weaver’s body along with her, and scooped a grave for her beneath the trees, just outside the village.

Sobs wracked her body. Klothys bellowed. She wailed. She tore up great clods of turf and hurled them into the sky. Still the little villagers lay dead. Their hands still. Unmoving. Unweaving.

“Klothys?”

The little talker was stumbling up the hill. Blood ran down from her shoulder, and she moved with a limp against the gale, but she moved. Her good arm reached out and Klothys held still. A rough move and she might break the talker further, so she reached out a single finger to brush the little woman’s arm, and confirm that she was real.

Around them, the wind and the rain were tapering off. When the world had gone quiet enough, the little talker spoke.

“We die. We die when the time is right and when it is not. It’s… it’s simply the way…” The little mortal fell quiet, and hung her head. She collapsed against Klothys’s knee, her breathing heavy.

“It’s not… I’m sorry, I…” Klothys could feel the warm dampness of the talker’s face against her knee. “I thought this was somewhere where… why can’t we just _live_? Why does the world have to be this way? Why-”

Klothys gathered up the little talker and carried her back to the village. The little folk had all stopped their work to stare up at the mountaintop, where the sounds were growing ever louder.

Almost deafening.

There was a split in the clouds, and a crack that shook Klothys’s bones. Sunlight poured down over the hills, filling the valley with a dusty, yellow light.

Then two shadows. Man-shaped holes in the sky, full of stars. The sun shined through the thin crown of one, while black mists flowed between the broad horns of the other. Both gazed down at the devastation on the hillside.

  
  


“H-heliod.” The talker’s whisper carried through the sudden silence. “And Erebos. Gods be merciful.”

“More undead. My realm is littered with them, Erebos. Your control over your carrion is shoddy.” Heliod’s voice boomed and echoed through the valley. “No wonder I had to do most of the work.”

“I cannot guard my domain, lead the dead, _and_ battle the titans all at once, sun-god.” Erebos did not boom, but his voice filled Klothys’s ear like wax. “Some returned will escape to do Kruphix knows whatever mischief consumes them. It’s just the consequence of my split attention. Just as _you_ have left swaths of the world unlit these past days.”

“Excuses,” Heliod sneered.

“The storm-titan is fled for the time being, If you want to challenge Uro on your own next time, you’re more than welcome to try.”

The sun-god snorted, and turned a glare on Klothys and the villagers. “Well? Your lives are saved. Are we not owed adoration?”

A few of the little mortals fell to their knees straight away. Most kept standing, until Heliod stamped his spear against the mountaintop, and the light beyond his head flared.

Then it was only Klothys and a handful of the others on their feet.

“Please.” The talker’s whisper was urgent. She was knelt in Klothys’s palm, but facing the cyclops, with her back to death and the sun. “We won’t bring back the dead by our stubbornness. The gods will see the ones they will to live alive, and the ones they will to die for death.”

Klothys stared ahead into the light. “…dead.”

“Dead. I’m sorry, Klothys.”

Klothys looked down at the little talker. She was warm in her palm. “Dead like those heroes.”

“Klothys?”

“They… are dead. Destiny… over. They not belong here with us living. No right to take our destiny. Your destiny. _My_ destiny.” Klothys knelt and set the talker down, gently. “ _I_ am not dead.”

Klothys rose again to her feet. Dirt trickled from between her fingers, and her heels pressed divots into the hillside.

“ _I_ am not dead.”

“N-no.” The talker trembled, but found her own feet. “No, you… you live.”

“ _You_ live.” Klothys stepped forward. Put herself between the talker and the gods. “You live a long life. You _will_ get a long life. You _will_ get your fair chance to live long and happy. To make little people happy with your words and hope. I _will_ see to that.” She walked further ahead. Past the healer. Past the smith. Past the baker. Past the children and the shepherds and the old ones. One by one they stood, and she stood between them and the gods who frowned down on all of them. “I _will_ protect you all. Your destinies matter. Matter more than their pride.” She thrust her chin out at the sun and the darkness.

Heliod lifted the spear from his shoulders. “One last monster, it seems.” The light lessened as he pointed his weapon down into the valley at Klothys. “And a whole community of ingrates. Perhaps it is not so bad to let the dead run wild among such mortals.”

“So it seems.” Erebos gestured, and a figure appeared at his feet. The bident-bearing hero crept up the mountaintop, looking between Erebos and Klothys. “Destroy the cyclops, and your escape shall be forgiven.”

Klothys snarled up at the mountaintops. “Dead will not trod on the path of the living.”

A weak shout went up among the villagers. Erebos nodded. Heliod grit his dazzling teeth.

Klothys started up the mountain at a sprint.

The hero did not have time to saturate the earth a second time, and so instead summoned a small wave, riding it down the slope. Light burst from Heliod’s spear, and again the blinding light of the sun shone down, filling Klothys’s vision.

She kept sprinting. The cheers were growing behind her. The little healer started up a chant. Some were stamping their feet.

Blinded though she was, Klothys felt the cool spray of the wave a moment before impact. She stooped on instinct, and felt her swinging fist connect with the hero; felt his body tear apart under the strength of the blow. Felt the wave crash and break on her charge.

The chant of her name was growing louder. Every voice sharp and distinct. _Shouldn’t they be growing fainter with distance?_

Klothys kept running. She would not stop. Not while she drew breath. Not while her little mortals were shouting, cheering on her every footfall. Not while she had a destiny still to embrace. She charged right at the gods, right into the sun-god’s rays-

-her little healer. The old. The children. The village, her talker, they were all cheering-

-and Klothys’s heart exploded.

That’s how it felt. Something in the pit of her chest burst like a thunder-clap, and her chest swelled. Her flesh felt red hot. Like fire. Like liquid.

She was expanding. Her feet ground into the earth, her hands ripped through the trees. The hills and woods rushed into her. She saw herself, despite the blinding, searing sunlight. The Klothys she was destined to be. The destinies that had crossed her own, shaping her path. The healer’s horns ground out from her skull. The sky fell and draped itself upon Klothys in the shape of the talker’s garments. The weaver’s proud horns sprouted from her shoulders, though they felt bare without the threads…

Klothys reached up to her face. Her fingers dug into the flesh, and in a single move she pulled her eye from its socket.

The muscle that anchored the eye to her skull softened, stretched, and arced into the sky like a comet’s tail. The fibers splintered and spread, lashing around Klothys. Surrounding her. Every thread the little mortals had woven with their lives… the threads of so many more. It didn’t hurt; the action felt completely right and natural, like rubbing the sleep from her eye after a long slumber.

She ran. She crushed the eye in her palm, and more threads burst from between her fingers, trailing after her, draping over her horns and hair. They filled the air, and Klothys felt the world through them. Perceived its shape as she filled it with her new sight.

She was right below the gods now, though all the height they had on her now was entirely because of the few scant meters of mountain she had yet to ascend. They gaped, weapons only half-raised to defend themselves.

She leapt.

Heliod lashed out with his spear, swift as a shaft of light, and Erebos with his whip, quick as the shadow cast by that light.

Neither came close. The threads showed the paths of the weapons before the gods had even thought to cast their weapons, and Klothys spun in the air between the blows. Her hands closed around Erebos’ horns and the trailing locks of Heliod’s hair. She pulled them from the high hilltop, and with screams decidedly un-divine in nature, the two gods toppled backwards.

The three of them tumbled down the far side of the valley.

They found their feet again quickly. Erebos flicked his whip out, but Klothys was already upon them. She whirled, and the threads encircled her in wide loops, catching Erebos’ hand and Heliod’s spear. The thread pulled their weapons off-strike, and Klothys delivered a spinning backhand across the sun-god’s jaw. He folded with the blow, and stumbled backward.

Klothys had a second to grin before something caught her around the throat, and she gagged. Erebos had taken a length of his whip and wrapped it around her neck. His clammy arms pressed roughly into her shoulders.

His voice in her ear was similarly cold. “No long godhood in your future, brute.”

He was so focused on his task that he ignored the storm of threads that filled the air. Klothys didn’t even need to touch the strings to move them. To will them to wrap the death god’s own throat. His arms and chest and legs. All at once they pulled taut, and Erebos fell to the earth, pulling Klothys down with him. She dropped her full weight on his chest, and rolled backward off of Erebos, ripping the whip from her neck.

She rose to her feet, just in time to see Heliod leaping over the prone Erebos, beams of light shooting from his face, his spear rushing toward Klothys’s face.

The light was blinding, in theory. Now that Klothys no longer saw with her eyes, but perceived through the threads, it was almost trivial to dash aside past Heliod’s thrust, and smash him in the chest with her fist.

Still, the sun-god was quick. Klothys felt the arc of his spear’s next swing through the threads a split second before the blade cut at her belly. She voided the space, and leapt over Erebos’ attempt to bind her legs with his whip.

The gods regarded each other warily. The weariness of the sun and death god thrummed through the air, but so did their experience. Klothys was new to fighting gods, but the other two were clearly no strangers to these sorts of battles. Even without knowing the talker’s stories of god dueling god, Klothys would have perceived as much in the way they held themselves. And like the heroes, they had their weapon.

Erebos was pulling the threads off his body. Heliod was circling around to flank Klothys. The ground around them was already torn and cratered from the blows they’d exchanged. If there had been little folk about…

Klothys pulled the threads back, stitching them into her scalp, draping herself with their many folds. From her loincloth she retrieved the needle, designed by the weaver, hammered by the smith.

The gods were on either side of her.

She snapped the needle in two as they struck. Threads wrapped around either piece, and in an instant Klothys held a spear in one hand, a flail in the other. The air and the earth told her what to do next. There were threads there too. Invisible, and pulsing through all of Theros. Lines that showed the movement and nature of all magic, the movements of all things divine…

…She caught Heliod’s spear in the crook of her flail. With her own spear she pinned Erebos’ whip to the ground. Momentum and destiny carried the disarmed gods toward Klothys, and she dealt each of them a blow to the head with her new weapons.

They fell back, yet again, this time empty-handed. When they rose, they made no new moves to attack.

“My spear, godling.” Heliod extended a hand, anger writ on his face. “My spear, or I will bring the whole pantheon down on your wretched valley.”

“We are not yours to command, sun-god.” Erebos rose up to his full height, and pointed to Klothys. “But I must also request my weapon, lest my watch on the gates of the underworld slip again, and release more vengeful heroes upon you.”

“You will leave,” Klothys growled. “Valley… this valley is not for you to interfere with. Your heroes will not come here any more. Your monsters will stay away. The people here will live their lives free from your… meddling. Accept or I will make it my destiny to slay gods.”

Silence passed between them. Then Erebos did something to startle both Klothys and Heliod.

He laughed.

To Klothys the sound was simply upsetting. Heliod reacted as if the death-god had told a filthy joke. He backed away a step, and lowered his hand.

Erebos smiled, though he clearly had less practice with the gesture than even Klothys. “You presume a lot about our control of the world, blind-god. While the titans roam free… no, even were they banished, so much in the world happens beyond our control.”

Heliod raised an eyebrow. “Erebos-”

“Good.” Klothys dissolved her flail and spear into thread, and took up the other gods’ weapons. “Destiny meant to be open for the living. Destiny _is_ meant for the living. If titans are a danger, I will choke them until they are a danger no longer.” She threw the weapons back. The spear to Erebos. The whip to Heliod. Then she observed in silence as they shuffled awkwardly over to each other to exchange weapons.

“You… you are just little things yourselves,” Klothys said at last. She drew the blindfold from her loincloth, and secured it around her face. “Little things become gods. Congratulations on your destinies. Keep them away from my people.”

“She sees the leylines,” Erebos remarked.

“She just became a god herself, fool,” Heliod snapped back. “Even a simple brute would understand our nature after ascending.” He pursed his lips. “But yes, perhaps she sees as well.” He considered the spear in his hand. “It’s not a trivial thing, godhood. I look forward to seeing it break you. If the titans don’t do the job first.”

He turned away from the other two. “For now, welcome.”

Heliod faded into a glow of sunlight. Erebos seemed to flow away, like a melting candle. Klothys watched the lines of magic until she was certain they were both well away, and then staggered, gasping under the sudden weight of divinity.

The faith of the valley folk spooled within her, filling her with strength and sight beyond sight, even from the other side of the mountain. And not just them. Even as she stood, breathing ragged, she felt the leylines of Theros pulling past and through her; a thousand threads on a loom that spanned to the horizon and back. More lives with every second, from the oldest giant to the smallest newly-hatched aracnir. Their wants. The paths before them. The many, many paths.

A lot to get used to, but first things first. Klothys drew another shuddering breath, and started back to the valley. She could still hear the shouts of the villagers.

They were safe. Safe for now.

A chill of doubt ran down her back. She had failed them today. Protected them, yes, but failed to keep them all safe. She was… a god now? But even a god could fail. What if she went to stop the titans and failed? What if-

-Klothys crested the hill, and she perceived. Felt every villager below, cheering at the sound of her. Full of hope. Hope for her. For themselves. For futures no longer in immediate peril. Each stood or sat up as they were able with an arm raised, a hand covering their eyes. Shouting. Chanting. Trusting.

Klothys cried out and ran down the hill. Shouting back to them. Babbling. Telling them they were safe. That she would see to their safety. Hands dropped from their faces the cheers redoubled. The healer called out from among the wounded.

“That’s our Klothys! Our champion!”

The others called up to her as well. Laughs. Sobs. Cheers. Curses against the other gods that would have been unthinkable a week prior.

The talker spoke last, once the last of the shouts had died down, once Klothys stood in their midst, on legs that were now filled with stars, tears of thread and Nyx streaming down her face. She spoke and Klothys laughed with joy to hear her speak.

“Hail Klothys the tender, who protects the destinies of the living.”

  
  



End file.
